


Obsidian

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Accidental Incest, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dimension Travel - Character Is Swapped With Mirrorverse Counterpart, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2020-12-29 15:04:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21142775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: Anakin Skywalker has managed to capture Darth Vader, but she's not anything like he imagined, and she reminds him of someone he used to know.





	Obsidian

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darlingargents](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingargents/gifts).

Anakin watched the prisoner through the cell door, and he frowned. He'd never seen her without the black mask. They'd all speculated what Darth Vader looked like under her armor. The last time Anakin had seen Palpatine, his face had been twisted and scarred. He'd expected the Emperor's most terrifying apprentice to share a similar distorted visage. Instead, when they'd removed her terrifying mask, she was lovely and so young it ached.

Everything about this situation worried him.

His Rebel cell had been safe on Ord Mantell, hiding out after a successful attack on a small Imperial facility in a nearby system. Mon Mothma wanted the remaining cells to join up to rally their forces, but Anakin had ignored the order. His instincts told him to stay in this sector. He'd believed it wasn't only because Ord Mantell was home to an ancient Jedi outpost where the Force flowed and soothed him, and in proof of this, they'd engaged Vader the next day. The fight had been brief but bitter. Anakin had lost half his troops. Vader had lost all of hers, and when her ship had been shot down, she'd attacked him one on one. It had been years since Anakin had last used his lightsaber in combat against a Sith, and he should have died under her red blade as too many others had.

He didn't understand what had happened next. They'd both lashed out with the Force, and something in the old Jedi outpost had hummed inside his head. The next thing he knew, Lady Vader lay unconscious on the ground. He should have killed her. He knew allowing her to live would lead to more trouble yet he hadn't been able to strike the killing blow. He'd taken her prisoner instead. Now they fled through hyperspace, unable to risk rejoining the rest at their new base.

"General, you know we can't keep her." His second-in-command watched Anakin almost as warily as he watched their prisoner.

"I know."

"If you wait until she wakes, it will be a thousand times harder."

"I can't kill her in cold blood, Daru. We're at war, but war has rules. Prisoners have the right to a fair trial." Not that he could come up with any ideas for what such a thing would look like, not for a Sith who'd gladly participated in the Emperor's demagoguery and destruction. Who could sit upon such a jury? Who could judge? Her victims cried out for justice but their survivors wanted only revenge. Vengeance was against the Jedi code. Anakin knew himself to keep the code with only a shoddy adherence, but he wouldn't abandon it utterly and commit murder now.

Vader stirred in her cell, her eyes opening to look at the ceiling. Discomfort moved through him. When he'd fought her, he had felt the cold of the Dark Side flowing from her in frigid waves. He sensed nothing of that ice now. The young woman in the cell had some power in the Force, that was obvious to him, but her psychic presence was muted, tempered, almost hidden, and her brown eyes held nothing of the mad tint of a true Sith.

She assessed her surroundings as she turned her head, taking in the cell, her bound hands, and her captors watching her through the brig's force field. He felt the anger inside her as she sat up.

"This is an outrage." She spoke the words with token indignation, but it was clear she had been imprisoned before and was going through the motions while she sized the two men up. Anakin watched her study Daru's injured lekku, then dismiss him to focus on Anakin alone. "Why have you brought me here?"

"We ask the questions," Daru said. Anakin placed a hand on his shoulder.

"You are our prisoner for the moment. We're deciding what to do next."

"Let me go. I have powerful friends. They'll be searching for me."

"You have no friends here," said Daru.

"Commander," Anakin said. "I need you on the Bridge. You can inform the crew the prisoner is awake. They should take every precaution, but she is not to be harmed until and unless I give the order. Anyone who violates that has to answer to me personally."

Daru looked at him in alarm. "You're not serious, sir?" Anakin noted the hesitant last word. He and Daru had been through too much together over the years to rely on formality. The 'sir' was for Vader's benefit.

"Go relay the order. I'll join you on the Bridge later."

With one last glance, Daru left them alone in the brig.

"Don't want witnesses?" Vader's arch tone mocked him, but Anakin detected the light thread of terror she tried to disguise. Another incongruity. He couldn't imagine Darth Vader being afraid of anything.

"We both lost good friends in that last battle. I don't want him to dirty his hands in revenge."

She shook her head. "Revenge for what? I was on Ord Mantell for personal business." That was a lie, easily seen and obviously not intended to be taken as serious.

"Your stormtroopers took out half of our forces."

The anger twitched in a line of her jaw. "My stormtroopers? I don't have stormtroopers, you moofbrain!"

This indignation was real. Anakin felt sharp spikes splintering from her. Perhaps more importantly, he couldn't imagine a Sith ever using the word 'moofbrain.' He stepped closer. "Start by telling me what you were doing on Ord Mantell."

Her chin set. "No." Now she gave away resignation, and firm adherence to whatever she thought she was protecting. He would get nothing from her.

He sighed. "Fine. I'll have someone bring you food shortly, Lady Vader." He turned, and almost gasped at the overwhelming emotion rolling from her. He'd thought she'd been angry before. He'd been wrong.

"How dare you." Her voice was cold as space. Rage and sorrow lashed her, and the echoes buffeted him like wings. She was past offended and into incandescent with fury at him, but she was not lashing out with her powers. By all accounts, Vader was pleased to Force-choke her enemies from a distance; he'd sent Daru away before his friend could goad her into an attack.

Now he wondered. Risking more of her anger, Anakin said, "How else do you want me to address you, Darth Vader?"

There. The anger was punctured by shock. Her beautiful face went pale as a cloud. She shook her head, denying his words. "Darth Vader is a beast. He murdered my family. How dare you."

He?

The Force had sung inside him as they'd fought. Anakin remembered how the power had flowed as he'd reached out, desperate to take down the creature before she could kill him. Obi-Wan had often said the Force made plans of its own, indiscernible by mortal beings even as it shaped their lives into unimaginable futures.

"You're not her."

"Who?"

"Vader. You appeared where she fell. You're wearing her garments." The woman looked down, and confusion wrinkled her brow as she noticed her own black robes. "But I can't feel the Dark Side in you at all. Anger, fear, all the things that can get you into trouble if you use them to focus your powers, but you're not evil. I can tell."

She stared at him, her confusion settling into the one certainty she could latch onto. "You're a Jedi."

He nodded. "You tried to kill me a few hours ago, but I am beginning to think you don't remember that."

"I was on Ord Mantell." She approached the forcefield. "Are we being watched?"

"No." Yes, but Anakin was fine with a quiet lie.

"I'm glad I found you. I'm with the Rebellion. We've heard rumors of surviving Jedi, but nothing has turned up. I know this is sudden, but I'm asking you to join us."

He took in her words with a confusion of his own. "What's your name?"

She smirked. "Leia. I thought you knew? Wasn't that why you took me prisoner?"

"I took you prisoner because you, or someone who looked a lot like you, took out half my men and tried to kill me." He watched her. "But it wasn't you. I believe that now. You're from somewhere else. Somewhere pretty far."

"I'm from Alderaan. Darth Vader stood by while Tarkin fired on it with the Death Star."

"That will be news to my friends who live there." He watched her face light up, hope and sorrow written in her eyes. He made a decision, and pressed the button to drop the forcefield. She gave him a nod of thanks. "I'm Anakin. You should call me General Skywalker when we're with my crew. We're with the Rebellion, too." Her jaw dropped, and somehow, she was even prettier. "Leia, I think you're a very long way from home."

* * *

"General," Commander Nitin said. "This is a dangerous mistake."

"I understand your concern. But I assure you, this woman is not Darth Vader. There was a strange emanation in the Force when we fought. I think the Sith we knew switched places with Leia somehow."

He could tell the others weren't buying it. Daru had accepted Anakin's intuition on the matter. The rest had not served with him long enough to trust this wasn't Jedi nonsense.

"She killed Tylo and Giriti," said Nitin.

"I'm sorry about the loss of your friends," said Leia. "Where I come from, we fight the Empire every day, and I've lost too many good friends to them as well." Anakin kept his eyes off her and on his officers, but part of him observed her. Now that she was out of her cell and coming to terms with her new location, Leia had all the composure and dignity of a Senator. He'd almost choked when she'd told him her full name, without telling her why. Bail and Breha Organa did have a daughter of their own, and Anakin was one of the few people who knew they'd adopted her. Winter Organa looked nothing like this woman.

Daru said, "Can you tell us what you know about the Empire?"

"Gladly, but if I've walked through to a different timeline, I'm not sure how valuable any information we share will be."

Gara asked Anakin, "Does she have the Force?"

"No," Leia said, as Anakin replied, "Yes."

Leia turned to him, her mouth forming into a line. "That's not funny."

"Don't blame me. I felt it as soon as I met you. You've got powers. I could train you to use them."

"I don't have the Force. Luke would have said something." She watched his face as she said it. He had the strangest feeling she was waiting for a reaction, but he had no idea what he was supposed to be reacting to.

He met her with calmness. "I can't speak for why someone else didn't say anything to you. If you'd prefer a different teacher, there are several other Jedi in the Rebellion. One of them might be a good fit."

"Several?" Again he saw the mixture of hope and grief in her face. He almost blurted out their names, but held back. There was a chance, however remote, that this was an Imperial trick, that Vader's memories had been wiped somehow in order to earn their trust and reveal the Rebellion's secrets to the Emperor. But he didn't think so. He trusted her.

He didn't like to think the reason he trusted her might be a cause more base and unbecoming to a Jedi. She was beautiful, and she reminded him of someone. The name was on the tip of his tongue. Perhaps he'd remember later.

"I'll introduce you if the time comes. I think we should focus on getting you back home."

Daru asked, "General, I'm not sure that should be a priority."

"Don't you? If Leia did switch places with Vader, who knows what intelligence she's gathering about the Rebellion in her timeline? Anything that overlaps could cause us headaches here."

Nitin said, "All the more reason to keep things the way they are. Vader is someone else's problem."

Leia's face went pinched again. He didn't have to be a mind reader to know she was thinking about the friends she'd left back where she came from. She'd just realized she'd dropped an angry Sith into their laps.

"We handle our own problems," Anakin said. "We can't return to Ord Mantell for the moment. The Empire will be searching for us, and will be looking for their people, including Vader. We have to stay out of sight. That means no rejoining the rest of the fleet, either. Too risky."

That brought them back on board. He could tell some of his people had been worried Leia was exerting some kind of control over him, but General Skywalker would never risk the safety of the rest of the Rebellion.

"I was scouting Ord Mantell for a potential new base for our Rebellion," Leia said. "That's not an option here. Have you looked at Gamos? Or Farsen Station?"

"I can't tell you where we've looked," Anakin said, with a hint of apology in his tone. She accepted it for what he meant. He glanced at Daru, who slipped out of the room. He'd go perform long range scans of both worlds and report back to Anakin in private later.

* * *

He asked Leia to use the family name Lars while she remained aboard the ship. The Organa family was too well known, and he'd have trouble keeping his crew from prying about her life and origins. Anakin didn't want word getting back to his friends on Alderaan about a daughter they may have had in another life. As much as Leia expressed longing to see her family again, she said she agreed with his decision. For some reason, perhaps the alliteration, she found his choice of name for her amusing.

Leia was brilliant, like a fire diamond: sparkling, sharp, and often cold, but with a flame deep inside. Once his crew had accepted she was not Darth Vader but instead a lost traveler, they had accepted her into their number. Anakin held back on giving her any official rank. As a new recruit to their Rebellion, she ought to start as a private, but it was clear to all of them Leia was used to command. At first, Anakin kept her close to maintain his own watch over her. Should she suddenly reveal her powers and attack, he was the only one who had any hope of fighting her. However, he soon came to trust in her strategic insight, and he enjoyed watching her brain tick over with each new problem he'd given her to solve. Daru was his right hand. He wasn't sure what role Leia was fitting into, but he liked it. He liked her. And when she turned to him with a satisfied smile after they'd finished another successful plan, he thought she liked him, too.

A voice inside his head that sounded more than a little like Obi-Wan reminded him this woman was half his age. Anakin ignored it.

* * *

The rumors swirled over the holonet link. Darth Vader was missing. She'd been killed in a skirmish on Ord Mantell. The Emperor enacted swift justice, as he called it, burning the surface of the planet to ashes. Even with the destruction of his Death Star, his forces had the power to wipe out the population of an entire world in retribution.

Daru stood next to Anakin as the report came in, placing a hand on his shoulder. "You couldn't have known."

"If she'd killed me, all those people would still be alive. I can't make myself believe it's worth the trade."

Daru shrugged with sad commiseration. He'd lost family and friends over the years just as Anakin had, and this wasn't the first time each had been forced to drag the other away from despair.

"Then let us never forget them, and fight in their memory until the end."

He thought to keep the news from Leia, and wound up telling her minutes after he met with her for dinner that evening. Her face drew into a soft grief for people she'd never met. "I'm so sorry."

"I keep thinking back," he said, ignoring the meal he had no appetite for. "She would have defeated me if you hadn't switched places with her. I have to believe there's a reason the Force brought you here."

"I'd like to think so, too." Her face had gone pensive. "I was wearing her clothes. You said you don't know what she looked like?"

"She always hid her face. No one I knew of ever heard her real name."

"So it could have been me. Another me, living a different life."

Anakin went to comfort her, to tell her that wasn't possible, and her stopped himself. Leia had begun the first steps in training with her powers. Was it possible that, trained by a Sith Lord in the ways of the Dark Side instead, she could have become the fearsome Vader? He couldn't say yes, but he couldn't deny it either.

Leia read this in his eyes. "I wondered why I was swapped here with her, and the obvious answer is simple. She and I are the same person." Grief weighed her down. "I am the Darth Vader for your universe, and in my name another planet has been destroyed."

He remembered what Daru had said. "Then let us never forget them, and fight in their memory until the end."

"I always do."

* * *

They came out of hyperspace close to Alderaan. Leia stood by a viewport overlooking the planet. Anakin said, "I told them we're routing to hide our tracks. We'll be here about five minutes before the next jump."

She didn't look at him at all. Her face reflected in the transparisteel as she took in the cool, blue world below. He watched the play of her eyes while she tracked the shapes of viridescent continents, squinting as though she might peer through the lacy clouds and see all the way to the ground below and so observe the tiny figures of the people she loved.

He wasn't sure she breathed once the entire time.

After five minutes, the image snapped away, drawing the stars into lines, and then into swirling blue. Leia stood at the viewport a little longer, as if she could will the image back.

At last, she broke away, and she looked at him, the sheen of tears in her eyes even if she was too proud to allow them to fall.

"Thank you."

"Any time."

* * *

It was late, by the ship's clock. Leia's long hair spilled against him as she rested, almost asleep. She'd joined him in his bunk a week before. They had shared a very pleasant week since, discounting the two encounters with the Empire.

"You're thinking," she said.

"I do that. It's my job."

"Opinions vary," she said, with what Anakin considered unnecessary diplomacy. "What are you thinking about?"

He shifted. "A lot of things. How nice this is. I haven't been this happy in a long time."

She kissed him. "Me either." A shadow crossed her eyes and was gone. She'd never said if there had been someone back in her old life.

"I was married once, you know."

Leia froze. She rolled to look at his face. He couldn't read hers as she said, "You don't say." She looked away, and for a moment, he was sure she was hiding something. "I always thought Jedi weren't allowed to marry."

"Secret marriage. We both jumped into things without thinking through the consequences. I was nineteen. She wasn't much older. Neither of us considered at the time what it would mean to keep quiet for the rest of our lives. After a few years, we wised up and broke it off." He glanced at Leia's speculative look. "All right, Padmé figured things out before I did, but I accepted she was right. It had been a mistake. She made a diplomatic excuse to return to her home planet and enacted the divorce in the same secrecy we'd undergone the marriage. I never saw her again. I didn't dare contact her to tell her I survived the massacre."

Leia traced the line of his neck with one finger. He'd wondered if she would volunteer anything about her own past loves, but the crystal facet turned his way gave nothing but his own reflection. "Any reason you're thinking about her now?"

"I've been trying to figure out who you remind me of. I finally realized it was her."

Leia pulled her hand back and gave him an unladylike snort. "You don't date much, do you?"

"I think it's safe to say I don't."

"A word of advice: Don't tell your new lover she reminds you of your ex-wife." She kissed his neck where she'd been drawing. "Moofbrain."

He gave her a rueful smile. "I didn't mean it in a bad way. You've got a burning passion for freedom, not just your own but everyone's, that I've rarely seen even among other Rebels. You're fearless, and you're smart. Ever since we met, I feel like I've known you all my life, and I...." He stopped talking before his mouth got him into deeper trouble.

Leia didn't need him to finish. She pulled his mouth to hers and grinned around the kiss before she said, "It's okay. I know."

* * *

The fleet had dispersed again. Anakin's team had stayed away from the rest, but they longed to see friends and comrades again, and he'd stake his life on the belief Leia was no danger. They joined a large cell that was establishing itself on a salt crystal world. Anakin introduced Leia to the command team, and noted how she reacted to some with veiled recognition, while others were truly new to her.

"We're glad you're here," said Madine. "We've got a mercy mission to Onaris Five which needs someone who can get in and out under the Empire's nose."

"My team can handle it."

"I was hoping you'd say that."

Anakin focused on the mission briefing while keeping a peripheral eye on Leia's reactions. He took her aside after a while. "You've been to Onaris Five before."

"In my timeline, yes."

"Anything you can share?"

"My friend Luke said he felt something weird when we visited there together. I think this is a Jedi matter."

She hadn't said much about her friend the Jedi. She had revealed there were no surviving Jedi in her Rebellion except this one youth who was training himself from the little he could gather on his own, but she wouldn't say more about him.

"I'll take the mission myself. Would you join me? I could use your insight."

Leia smirked at him. "This isn't a date."

Her met her with a grin of his own. "I wouldn't dream of considering this a date. Jedi don't date, as you know."

"So I've been told."

* * *

Anakin felt it as soon as they touched down. It wasn't dissimilar to what he'd sensed at Ord Mantell. Part of this world had a deep connection to the Force. Leia nodded at him. "I can feel it, too. Why didn't I feel it before?"

"You didn't know about your powers. The more you train, the more your mind opens to the Force."

"Guess I should keep up my lessons, hm?"

She'd been a fast study. In the four months he'd known her, Leia had gone from awkwardly batting a training droid with his borrowed lightsaber to easily parrying him in their sparring bouts. She had no lightsaber of her own, yet when he lent his to her for practice, it was as thought she'd been born with it in her hand. She was far older than the age a padawan typically started, but nothing was typical any longer. He had the inkling she might eventually be his equal if she kept up her training. The prospect thrilled him. For all that Leia put him in mind of many people he'd known over the years, he'd never met anyone quite like her.

He put aside his emotions for now. "Come on. We need to get these medical supplies to the drop site, or more people will suffer and die."

"Right," she said, helping him load the supply crates, disguised with Imperial symbols. "And if they happen to express their gratitude by joining the Alliance?"

"So much the better for everyone."

Leia huffed as she moved another crate. "You're a bigger cynic than I was expecting. I like it."

He wasn't sure how to take that, but he never did. Sometimes she made comments that he was positive would come clear in the light of her own history, but she refused to share enough details to let him in.

They made the drop at the assigned coordinates, Anakin placing the crates while Leia kept a lookout for the Empire. Once they were gone, even if the Imperials did come, they wouldn't see anything out of the ordinary. His heart raced regardless, and he could see from the tight line of her posture that Leia felt the same thing. They were both on edge. Something about this planet was wrong.

A sensible person would withdraw. A conscientious person would take readings, whatever were possible for a thrumming source of Force energy only detectible by psychic ability, and take their data back to the fleet. A prudent person would contact the other Jedi in the Rebellion, ask their opinions, and return with a task force.

Anakin looked at Leia. She raised an eyebrow at his silent inquiry. He swallowed his grin. Had things been different and she come to the temple as a child, he could see her getting called on the carpet for making reckless decisions her elders didn't approve of, just as he had.

She gestured with her chin. "That way."

"After you."

They brought their lander as close as they could to the site, then put it down and camouflaged the sides with foliage. A determined search might discover them but the usual Imperial flyovers would pay no mind.

"Any theories as to what it is we're looking for?" she asked him, slipping her hand comfortably in his.

"Could be a number of things. Ancient ruined temple. Untapped power nexus. Even a being strong enough with the Force might cause this kind of ripple. An old Jedi outpost on Ord Mantell was what brought you here."

He didn't have to read her mind to pick up on the drift of her thoughts from there. Something powerful enough to lead her here might have the same ability to send her back. A soft pain squeezed his heart. He had only met her a few short months ago but he felt as though they had been friends his entire life. He hadn't brought up his ex to her again, but Leia often reminded him of Padmé's driven nature, and her passion for freedom. Leia's flares of anger and impulsiveness, on the other hand, were like looking into a mirror. There was nothing about her he didn't find fascinating, even magnetic in her pull to him in her similarities and her startling opposites.

The cynical, suspicious part of himself wondered if he'd gotten it all wrong from the beginning. Lady Vader could only fight him to a draw with her lightsaber. Instead she might pretend to be this perfect, brilliant, charming woman who was his match in every way, and let Anakin fall in love with her, and by this destroy him utterly. Part of him wondered if that was her plot. Part of him admitted she'd succeeded.

Power pulsed as they neared the site, drawing them to itself like winged daylees butted and flitted against the screen of a glowlamp. They weren't the first to arrive. A small Imperial team had set up around the unsettlingly gnarled tree that lurked in the center of the forest.

Anakin looked through his macro, then handed it to Leia.

"I say we fight them." She was only half joking. Anakin believed there was a reasonable chance the two of them could take out the ten man team. But then what? They'd alert their superiors, or those would come as soon as they missed a scheduled report. The Onarians didn't need more Imps breathing down their necks simply because Anakin and Leia were curious.

"We'll come back tonight," he said. "Then we'll fight them."

* * *

As it was, they didn't have to fight. The Imperial researchers apparently didn't believe this site was high risk. They had made camp in a nearby clearing, and had set only one guard on watch at the tree. Leia stunned him without alerting him anything was amiss. He'd awaken in a few hours believing he'd dozed off on the job. Leia and Anakin would be long gone by then.

She kept an eye on their periphery as he approached the knotty, lumped thickness of the tree's main trunk. The area was loud with the Force, crackling with it. Anakin placed his hand against the rough bark and felt an electric thrill run up his spine, practically sparking between his teeth.

"And?"

"It's something," he said. Nerves and paranoia bit him as she came closer. If this had all been a ruse, he'd just led Darth Vader to a powerful asset. Leia held out her palm, and foreboding struck hard. "Wait," Anakin said to her. "Be careful. I don't know what effect it will have on you."

She pulled her wrist away, cautious but curious. "Can we use this to help the Rebellion?"

"I doubt it. Energy like this can't be tamed into a weapon. It's best left alone."

She glanced at the fallen stormtrooper. "They're not going to leave it alone. They're going to warp and manipulate it into serving the Emperor. Can we neutralize it somehow?"

They could. The energy he felt was not infinite. Were they to tap into the Force flowing here, they might be able to drain away the power for long enough that the Empire lost interest in the site. But he could only think of one thing at the moment which might use enough energy to accomplish that feat.

Leia read his thoughts plain on his face.

"I did want to go home," she said with a reluctant sorrow.

"We can think of something else," he said.

"Not before he wakes up. Tell me you know how to make this happen."

He closed his eyes and thought, but consideration didn't take long. He remembered reaching out with his powers. He remembered Vader reaching out with hers. He remembered the movement of the Force through them.

"It'll take both of us working together."

He stepped away from the tree, and suddenly Leia was in his arms. She kissed him with a lifetime's worth of regrets. He could feel time running out, and he kissed her back heedless of the danger. He would gladly take on fifty Imperials for another few minutes holding her.

"Come with me," she said, taking his hands in hers. "Our Rebellion could use you. All the Jedi in my timeline are gone, except for Luke." She closed her eyes. "And believe me, he would love nothing more than having you there to show him how to use his powers."

That stung, more than a little. He'd suspected she was his enemy, using him to get to the Rebellion, but it was somehow worse to find out she was his ally, using him to aid her cause.

"You keep talking about your friend Luke. Maybe it's time you go back to him."

She shook her head impatiently. She was going to call him a moofbrain again, and this was not how he wanted to say goodbye to the woman he'd fallen in love with.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean it that way." He closed his eyes, not wanting to see the hurt look on her face now, wanting to remember the firm smiles instead. "I can't go. I couldn't drop the Anakin from your timeline here. That's not fair to him."

"He's dead. I'm sure of it. You wouldn't be switching places with anyone." She touched his cheek and made Anakin look at her. "My best friend's name is Luke Skywalker." She laughed low, party to her own private, sad joke. "Luke is not going to like finding out I'm in love with his father. He'll get over it. Please, Anakin. Come back with me."

The world shifted under his feet. The Force tilted the galaxy and Anakin alongside, giving him too many things to process at once and a tumult in his mind from the tree. He clawed to the surface, flailing for the one steady rock in the flood. Leia loved him, too.

Duty prickled him in his conscience. He owed the Rebellion. He'd pledged himself to overthrowing the Empire. At the time, he hadn't specified which Rebellion and which Empire. All he knew was that Leia was going to the other one, and he wanted nothing more than to stay by her side. Considered from that point of view, it was hardly a decision at all.

He opened his comlink and sent a text-only message directed towards orbit where Daru waited for them to return with the lander. _"Package delivered. The mission has changed. I am leaving you in charge of the team. May the Force be with you, my friend."_ He sent the signal.

Anakin reached out with his powers. Leia reached out with hers. The Force in the tree pulsed and hummed, draining into them, filling them both with a bright warmth like a brand new day.


End file.
